


Come Home

by KatLeePT



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 21:14:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6210331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatLeePT/pseuds/KatLeePT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They plead with her to come home, but she can no longer hear them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Home

She watches the sun set, feeling as though the darkness is encroaching all upon her. She is not afraid of the dark, not any longer, not since her journey underground. Ever since then, there are few things that actually scare her. What scares her the most is the thought of losing her family, but that isn't just limited to the people now inside her home.

Sarah sighs, chin resting on her hand, and looks at the rising moon. Its bright, radiant silver reminds her of a gown she once wore. That was the time she actually got to feel his hands on her body. Magic and power had radiated from the Goblin King from the very moment she had first seen him, but when they had danced close on that fateful, magical night, she'd felt the power almost trumpeting within him. Still, it hadn't been the only thing to leave her breathless.

Her mind has wandered back to that night well over a million times now several years later. She still questions every decision she made. She still contemplates the other turns she could have taken, the other choices she could have made, the other decisions she could have spoken, and still, she has no answers.

She watches the moon's rise through tears shining in her own dark eyes. She has never felt anything like she felt in Jareth or throbbing between them that night. She has dated, or at least, she's tried. These mortal males can not compare to what she was offered that night, but if she'd taken his hand, she would have lost Toby. It wasn't fair, but then life never was.

She remembers him asking her as to her basis of judgement. She didn't understand then what he was getting at, but she does now. Nothing in life is fair. Nothing is as it should be. You have to work for everything worthwhile you gain, and even then, you might not get it. Even then, you might wind up an old woman all alone. She closes her eyes against the tears welling within them.

She should settle. She knows that's what her stepmother and father want,but then neither of them have ever really wanted what's best for her. She'd rather be alone and never marry, never even kiss another man, than to not have what she felt that night. She's accepted no man here on Earth can give it to her, and if she only knew how to reach Jareth again, she'd return to the labyrinth in a heartbeat, leaving Toby safe here above ground.

The night breezes, but Sarah no longer hears the voices on it. "Say the words,"the Goblins urge. "Say the words."

Even Sir Didymus yips, aching for his friend to be back and happy once more, "Say the words, fair lady."

"Did she say the words?" the dumbest of the Goblins asks. His fat head is rained on by tiny, green hands and feet.

"Bah." Hoggle turns away in disgust, unable to watch any more for the tears which he'll never admit are welling in his own eyes. He waves the crystal ball and the scene it plays away from him. "She'll never say the words."

"Sarah . . . friend?" Ludo queries in his deep, rumbling voice. After all these years that have passed since last they partied with her in her bedroom, even the great beast is no longer certain of the girl's intentions.

"Yeah," Hoggle says, patting his furry arm, "but they mean more to her than us." She'll never forget them nor they her, but she is where she wants to be -- or so he believes. After all, if she wanted to come to their home, she'd simply say the words and be whisked away again, wouldn't she? But then she'd have to face Jareth. The girl's not a coward, but only a fool would want to go through that again.

"Say the words,"they whisper again and again, but she never hears them.

She does, however, hear her front door open and shut and footsteps approach. She opens her eyes to face her family, but it's only Toby. She offers him a smile,but he knows and worries that it's not heartfelt.

"They're asking about you," he says.

"Tell them I'll be in soon."

He nods but sits down beside her. "It's not good for you to be out here alone, you know."

She almost tells him that she's not alone, that she is kept company constantly by her memories,and that even the Goblins whose presence she thinks she feels sometimes (though always,when she turns around to face them, they are not there) are more company than any humans other than him, but she holds her tongue, knowing their parents already think her insane. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not."

She smiles at him. He's always been able to understand the truths from which she's tried to keep him, all but the greatest one. He still doesn't remember Jareth or the labyrinth or any of the Goblins. He never got to know Hoggle, Sir Didymus, or Ludo. He still doesn't remember the land underneath theirs, the land that calls Sarah home with every breath she takes.

"Come inside, Sarah. Have a nice cup of tea."

She blinks in surprise. "What did you say?" she asks.

"I said come inside. Have some tea, some cake. Be with your family."

And that is where she's supposed to be, isn't it? Her concerns are supposed to be with them, not wrapped up in the past and a world of whose existence no one else even knows. Keeping her sorrow to herself, the girl stands and follows her brother inside. She shuts the door behind them, and her hand is still on its handle when a snowy white owl passes in front of the silver moon a second too late, always a second too late.

"Say the words," they whisper. "Come home." But she doesn't hear them as she surrounds herself again with her family and tries, for yet another night, to forget the past and a future she wanted but has denied herself forevermore.

  
**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.


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